In light of continuing propaganda by various scalawags that "voter fraud doesn't exist," and in service to that nonsense and the left-wing cheering the for-now-at-least court decision Friday striking down Voter ID in Pennsylvania, it might be useful to visit reality.

The reality uncovered by New York City's Department of Investigations.

Liberals who oppose efforts to prevent voter fraud claim that there is no fraud -- or at least not any that involves voting in person at the polls.

But New York City's watchdog Department of Investigations has just provided the latest evidence of how easy it is to commit voter fraud that is almost undetectable. DOI undercover agents showed up at 63 polling places last fall and pretended to be voters who should have been turned away by election officials; the agents assumed the names of individuals who had died or moved out of town, or who were sitting in jail. In 61 instances, or 97 percent of the time, the testers were allowed to vote. Those who did vote cast only a write-in vote for a "John Test" so as to not affect the outcome of any contest. DOI published its findings two weeks ago in a searing 70-page report accusing the city's Board of Elections of incompetence, waste, nepotism, and lax procedures...

It's an amazing story, with 24-year-olds pretending to be 87, poll workers helping undercover investigators commit fraud, live people casting the votes of the dead.

And as John points out, this isn't the first time an official investigation has found massive voter fraud in New York City. He describes another investigation, one run by a liberal, that likewise found significant voter fraud in New York:

In 1984, Brooklyn’s Democratic district attorney, Elizabeth Holtzman, released a state grand-jury report on a successful 14-year conspiracy that cast thousands of fraudulent votes in local, state, and congressional elections. Just like the DOI undercover operatives, the conspirators cast votes at precincts in the names of dead, moved, and bogus voters. The grand jury recommended voter ID, a basic election-integrity measure that New York has steadfastly refused to implement.

To the liberals who run New York City, enacting measures to deter voter fraud just won't do. Quite the reverse. In the current case, the undercover agents -- despite being city workers engaged in a professionally-run official investigation -- may be prosecuted.

Finally, as a side note on Pennsylvania's voter ID ruling Friday, I recommend this post by Rick Hasen on the Election Law Blog. Defenders of commonsense vote integrity measures such as voter ID should note, as Hasen points out, that the trial judge -- obviously no patsy for voter ID -- explicitly stated that Pennsylvania's voter ID law "was NOT motivated by an attempt to disenfranchise minorities or Democratic voters."